DO THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES? PARTISAN DISAGREEMENT AS A CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRATIC COMPETENCE
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The partisan and ideological polarization of American politics since the 1970s appears to have affected pubic opinion in striking ways. The American public has become increasingly partisan and ideological along liberal‐conservative lines on a wide range of issues, including even foreign policy. This has raised questions about how “rational” the public is, in the broad sense of the public's responsiveness to objective conditions. Widespread partisan disagreements over what those conditions are—i.e., disagreements about “the facts”—suggest that large proportions of the public may be perceiving the facts incorrectly. The facts in question are important enough that these partisan disagreements may translate into sub‐optimal policy preferences and electoral decisions.
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In the motivated reasoning account, polarization has strengthened partisans' willingness to ignore or counter-argue with credible facts that cast aspersions on their party or party leaders and to uncritically accept false information that reflects favorably on their side.
“In this motivated reasoning account, polarization has strengthened partisans' willingness to ignore or counter-argue with credible facts that cast aspersions on their party or party leaders and, conversely, to uncritically accept false information that reflects favorably on their side (Gaines et al., 2007;Shapiro and Block-Elkon, 2008;Kraft et al., 2015).”
From Partisan Gaps in Political Information and Information-Seeking Behavior: Motivated Reasoning or Cheerleading? (2019) · cites this paper as Shapiro and Block-Elkon, 2008
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- Shapiro, R. Y., & Bloch‐Elkon, Y.
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- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- partisan disagreement, ideological polarization, public opinion, factual accuracy, foreign policy attitudes, liberal-conservative divide, policy preferences, voting behavior, democratic competence
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